How Do You Tell
by KentouKurige
Summary: Sorry, if this doesn't make sense... I just needed to vent...


Shouri: Hey guys... sorry if this isn't any good, please forgive me... I just needed to vent. It's Trowa's POV... not something I normally do. A 25 friendship only fic, and a death fic. Sorry...

:: starts crying and hugs a little black cat with bright gold eyes and a green collar ::

**How Do You Tell**

I've watched them. I've always watched them. It's just something I do… watch people.

You'd be surprised how much you see when you aren't talking all the time.

I don't know if even Quatre realized how close they really are. I'm pretty sure Heero thought they were going to kill each other one day.

Not anymore though… they wouldn't have anyway. It was always easy to see they liked each other too much.

It was subtle though.

Duo was always talking cheerily. Always teasing and warbling and touching when it was obvious the other really wasn't comfortable with it. Quatre and Heero always seemed to think it was because he liked to be annoying.

I think he just doesn't want to think. I think he can't stand the silence. He's running from a past he can't bear and hiding in the smiles and the words he can't feel.

He runs, he hides, but he only lies to himself.

Wufei though… Wufei was always kind of in the background. At least when he was quiet. He used to hide in his room meditating or exercising, and he always held his head high when he had to consort with us. And when he got mad, boy did you know it! He could be so loud!

They always used to call him a grump. I think someone even called him an antisocial snob once… wait, that was Duo, and that means he didn't mean it in the slightest.

Because that wasn't it. I'm pretty sure he was just lonely. And shy! You should have seen him blush if he noticed you looking at him when he wasn't completely dressed.

But he was hurting inside, just like Duo... I think that's what drew them together. Not that anyone but me noticed….

Duo was always getting into Wufei's personal space. He was always following him around, always laughing and teasing, or chortling quietly as Wufei glared at him in suspicion of a prank to come. It became almost a given to me that if you saw him, he'd be chirping away at our fifth pilot as the Chinese teen pretended to ignore him. I even found him singing to himself on Wufei's bed once, when Wufei was away on a mission.

And believe it or not, Wufei seemed to like Duo and his incessant chatter. Of course, he did occasionally get annoyed. It wasn't unusual for a quiet morning to be shattered by him ranting on the top of his lungs. Or to see him chasing Duo through the safe house, threatening serious bodily harm. But he never meant it.

But it was really when they weren't driving each other crazy that you could really tell. Sometimes they would be so calm together. They'd sit for hours, just watching the rain or reading together. Or talking softly to each other.

When they thought no one was looking, they would do things for each other. Thoughtful little favors like making enough lunch for two when one of them was too busy to make themselves something. Or steering a seemingly innocuous conversations away from a painful subject.

Or soothing away nightmares when everyone else was asleep…

I know it was always hard to see, but those two are the best of friends.

That's why this is so hard.

I was never good at talking. I just can't do it!

But I have to… I'm the only one who can.

It was an easy mission, just in and out. The suits weren't even functional, the security was minimal… it shouldn't have even needed two of us, but the doctors had wanted to be cautious.

But all hell broke loose.

Something alerted the guards, and they pinned us down in a firefight. It delayed us enough that we were still on the base when the hangers started going up, and we used the distraction to run.

Run? Hah! We took off like a shot, picking off enemy soldiers as we went.

I dashed for a bunker. The hanger nearest us would go off very soon, we didn't have time to make it all the way to the fence. Wufei followed me quickly enough.

But the soldiers started firing again just as I reached cover and turned to slam my back into the concrete wall.

I saw Wufei. He had fallen to one knee, and was rising again, not three feet from cover. He jerked, and a spray of red misted out from his right shoulder.

But he got all the way up and lurched into the protection offered by the wall, landing clumsily and rolling onto his back against a crate to my right.

Then the hanger nearest us roared into oblivion, raining debris everywhere. I couldn't even hear the guards as they cried out and died, could only fall onto my face and cover my head as the world shook.

As soon as calmed, I got up and started to run, though my ears were still ringing.

But Wufei didn't follow me. I went back, coughing in the dust and smoke.

He hadn't even gotten up. He was still sprawled on his backs, arms flung out to either side, right one bloody. His head was tilted as if he had turned it away from the blast, but now his face was screwed up as if he was in enormous pain, and his dark eyes were glazy and half closed.

I though he had injured himself too badly to move unaided.

"Wufei?"

I went down on one knee and reached for his left shoulder. My hand came down. He didn't move. He didn't blink. The cloth beneath my fingers was wet with the congealing stickiness of swiftly cooling blood.

I don't remember picking him up. I don't remember stumbling back to the pickup truck we had used to get to the base. I don't remember climbing into the flatbed.

I just kept staring at him. People tell me it's unnerving when I do that. Wufei used to glare back, but more recently, he would tell me that I need to learn to blink once in a while with a smirk. It used to make me smile inside, knowing that Duo had rubbed off on him so much that he could be so loose with me.

He didn't glare this time. He didn't snap.

It must have been a while later that I came out of my daze. I was pretty sure I was in shock, because the next thing I remember is waking up in back of the pickup, cradling Wufei to my chest. My arms were cold and sticky with drying blood.

Just like his shirt…

He was so still… and he seemed so small in my arms. Limp…

After I got hold of myself again, I laid him out and got some water to clean us up. Then I took him back to the safe house.

The ride back to the safe house felt like a dream. I pulled into the driveway and tripped clumsily into the kitchen. Everything was still and quiet. A part of me felt relieved that I wouldn't have to face the others yet. I didn't feel as if I could speak, but I knew that I would have to as soon as they saw me.

The back door slammed open. Duo bounced in wearing his manic grin, and my heart clenched…

Oh God…

"Hey Tro, you guys are back early! 'Fei gone to hide in his room already?" Duo chirped. I could feel my eyes go wide.

All I could see was Wufei crumpled behind that bunker… Wufei staring blindly at the sky…

All I could feel was Wufei, cold and still in my arms, as I finally realized that he was gone, that a bullet had found the heart he had guarded so carefully from the harshness of the world.

All I could feel was my pain, as I clutched him tight and cried into his tangled black hair, rocking so hard that my back kept smashing into the cab of the truck with muffled thuds as my own tears fell from my eyes to streak across his lax face, making it seem he shared my grief… that indeed it was he who grieved and not me, who should no longer be able to shed those tears.

All I can hear is the beating of my own heart, and the litany I had choked out as I held him… oh god oh god oh god… a prayer begging for everything not to have been true… a prayer God didn't answer… a prayer Wufei never heard.

Oh God…

Duo is staring now, smile fading slowly and eyes going wide and pleading. I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes once more, but all I can see is Wufei's pale face as I slide closed his eyes and lay him out in the bed of the truck, and lean in to kiss his pallid forehead before I cover him with a tarp and begin the drive home…

I can't do this.

This never should have happened.

Duo is my comrade… my friend… he doesn't deserve this…

Why did this happen?

I can't do this.

How can I do this… How?

Duo is like a little brother to me!

…

I can't do this… How can I do this?

How can I hurt him like this?

…

How do you tell your brother… that his best friend is dead?

Shouri ::snuffles:: sorry... I just... had to do it... my lovebird died last night... my little Baby Girl... and I'm so heartbroken... we covered her cage up with a cover and took care ofher, andthen I went and got a hold of myself... but then I made the mistake of going into the living room where her cage was. And there was my cockatiel ::chokes on tears:: and he was... he was tugging at the cover on her... on her cage... worrying it, trying to get it off... and he was chortling and singing like he always does when... when he talks to her, even though she was an antisocial and even violent little brat at times... and he looked... he looked at me... all reproachful and pleading as he called her... and I just broke down....

He's a cockatiel, my little Baby Bird... my eternally younger brother.... he doesn't understand these things, he can't... but he trusts me... he trusts me to make everything _right_ in his world! And he was just looking at me, sad because we'dcovered her cage, and unsure because she wasn't answering, and just... ::sob:: just asking me to... to uncover her and make... make everything right again....

And all I can think is... how do you comfort and animal who has lost his lifetime companion?... how do you help a bird who has always had another by their side, and is suddenly bereft?...

How do you tell a cockatiel that his best friend is dead?

Sorry again... ::cries into the little black cat's fur while he purrs and licks her cheeks with his rough tongue:: ... Sorry... I just... had to share with someone, and... and none of my friends... are around right now... Forgive me for making you have to deal with that... Ja...


End file.
